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Capstone Headwaters Advises Programming Research Ltd. on its Sale to Perforce Software

Mergers & Acquisitions

May 2018

Boston, MA — Capstone Headwaters has advised Programming Research Ltd. (“PRQA”), the UK-based leading provider of sophisticated, enterprise-grade static code analysis, on its sale to Perforce Software (“Perforce”), a global provider of solutions to enterprise teams requiring productivity, visibility, and scale during all phases of the technology development lifecycle, which is backed by Clearlake Capital. The acquisition expands the Perforce portfolio of solutions by adding PRQA’s family of Static Code Analyzers that assess software reliability, security, and compliance while reducing development time.

PRQA solutions are widely adopted by organizations whose products need to perform securely and reliably in mission-critical and safety-critical environments, such as automotive, aerospace, medical, and other demanding industries. Customers realize faster time-to-market due to the technology’s scale and accuracy in automated inspection of source code for high risk code and non-conformance to standards.

"PRQA have been at the forefront of code quality management for over 30 years. We have some of the world’s top experts in code analysis at PRQA, and our products help our customers develop high-quality code more reliably and at a faster pace. By joining forces with Perforce we will be able to expand the reach of this great technology and deliver business value to a much bigger audience worldwide," said Paul Blundell, PRQA CEO.

David DeSimone, Director with Capstone Headwaters, commented, “The sale of PRQA marks Capstone Headwaters’ third closed transaction in the application development and infrastructure software space in the past eighteen months. We continue to be excited by the macro trends in this sector, and believe that the combination of PRQA and Perforce will create the global leader in static code testing solutions for the world’s largest embedded software developers that will depend on PRQA’s code analyzers for improved code quality and security.”

Janet Dryer, Perforce CEO, noted, “With this latest acquisition we continue delivering on our strategy to offer more solutions and capabilities that improve DevOps pipeline performance for enterprise development teams. PRQA is a great match with Perforce as we both serve large global teams striving to deliver their solutions faster and with higher quality.”

“We are excited to support the Perforce management team as they continue to execute on its buy-and-build strategy,” added Prashant Mehrotra, Partner of Clearlake. “With this strategic acquisition of PRQA, Perforce now offers solutions for enterprise customers to address security and quality early in the software development lifecycle, enabling better continuous integration and continuous delivery.”

Regarding Capstone Headwaters, Paul Blundell noted, “From the moment we engaged with Capstone Headwaters (CSHW) we felt we were in a safe pair of hands. This proved to be the case throughout the entire process. CSHW listened carefully and understood our needs and were extremely professional and supportive throughout the journey. I have no hesitation in recommending CSHW, confident in the knowledge that they will give excellent and diligent service.”

Industry Experience

Lead Professional

“From the moment we engaged with Capstone Headwaters we felt we were in a safe pair of hands. This proved to be the case throughout the entire process. CSHW listened carefully and understood our needs and were extremely professional and supportive throughout the journey. I have no hesitation in recommending CSHW, confident in the knowledge that they will give excellent and diligent service.”